Wandering wolf gives birth to a pack of pups

Yahoo

2 days ago

Jun. 4—Asha first captured public imagination when the endangered wolf twice wandered outside the bounds of the wolf recovery area in 2023, but the female Mexican gray wolf just embarked on a new adventure: motherhood.
Female Mexican wolf 2754 — nicknamed Asha — gave birth to five pups on May 8, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Asha and her captive-born mate, M1966, are first-time parents. The two were paired at the Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility near Socorro in December 2023.
"Plans are in place to release the full pack onto private land in New Mexico this summer," the agency said in a statement on social media.
The wolf pups are all in good health and Asha had a typical pregnancy and birth. The agency does not know the gender of the pups, as they are minimizing disturbances to the den to maximize Asha's success in raising her first litter.
The baby wolves have to be 6 weeks oldbefore getting their first round of vaccinations. Afterward, they will be moved to an acclimation pen, then released into the wild when elk are calving in the area to encourage the wolves' natural hunting behavior, according to Fish and Wildlife.
The details of their release later this month are still being finalized, although the initial 2025 release and translocation proposal suggests placing the family on the Ladder Ranch, managed by Turner Enterprises, which focuses on ecotourism and conservation.
While wild-born Asha has a history of roaming north, she also had no documented conflicts with humans or cattle, according to the proposal. That experience as a wild wolf should reduce the risk of her pack killing livestock. But if the pack relocates to an area with livestock and her mate causes trouble, Fish and Wildlife is prepared to recapture him and place him back into captivity, according to the proposal.
17 foster pups placed
Asha's pups aren't the only endangered baby wolves moving out. U.S. Fish and Wildlife placed 17 captive-born Mexican wolf pups in wild dens this year, Arizona Game and Fish Department announced Monday. Six pups were placed in one Arizona den, and 11 were placed in three New Mexico dens. Nine of those wolves were also born at Sevilleta.
Although the government agencies working on Mexican wolf recovery previously released wolf family units semi-regularly from 1998 to 2006, and relocated a pack onto the Ladder Ranch in 2021, pack releases aren't typical these days. Instead, they usually place pups under 2 weeks old in wild wolf dens with similarly aged wild wolf pups, so the captive-born baby wolves can learn the hunting and socialization skills they need to survive in the wild.
Fish and Wildlife originally released adult wolves with their offspring from captivity for the sake of establishing a wild population and increasing the wolf population. But fostering captive-born pups is the strategy now that the wild population is larger, because it improves genetic diversity and eliminates nuisance behavior captive-born adult wolves exhibit, according to the proposal.
"Meeting the genetic recovery goals as outlined in the 2022 Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan is essential," Clay Crowder, assistant director of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, said in a statement.
"The fostering program is achieving these goals faster than was predicted, with 21 of the 22 required fosters having reached breeding age. Also of note from the foster program is that we now have at least 13 fosters having produced 31 litters, all of which are important to contributing to the genetic health of the wild population. With these successes, we are approaching the criteria to begin evaluating potential downlisting of Mexican wolves."
Environmental activist groups have long advocated for releasing bonded adult pairs with their pups — a wolf pack — instead of only fostering captive-born wolf pups, and have argued that pack releases are avoided in deference to the livestock industry.
"If we look at the longer-term goals of the cross-foster program, which is to increase genetic diversity in the entire wild lobo population, it's imperative that the wolves survive to breeding age and then go on to breed, so that those genes are permitted to continue in the wild population and increase the genetic diversity and make the lobos more genetically resilient moving forward," said Leia Barnett, Greater Gila New Mexico Advocate with WildEarth Guardians.
Since the fostering program began in 2014, Fish and Wildlife has identified 30 out of 110 fostered pups that survived their first year. Four of the surviving fosters were born in the wild and 26 were born in captivity.